Halcyone eBook

From the moment that she knew he was coming a strange
stillness seemed to fall upon the child. She
had grown long-legged and was at the fledgling stage
when even a pretty girl sometimes looks plain, and
she, who had as yet no claim to beauty, was at her
worst. She was quite aware of it, with her intense
soul-worship of all beautiful things. Some unreasoned
impulse made her keep away from her master during the
first day, but on the Sunday he summoned her, and,
as once before, she came and poured out the tea, but
it was a cold and windy autumn afternoon, and it was
not laid out of doors. John Derringham had been
for a walk, and came in while she sat in a shadowy
corner behind the table, teapot in hand.

He was greatly changed, she thought, in the three
years. He had grown a beard! and looked considerably
older, with his thin commanding figure and arrogant
head. He was not handsome now, but peculiarly
distinguished-looking. He could very well be Pericles,
she decided at once. As for him, he had almost
forgotten her. Life had been so full of many
things; but, seeing a pale, slender, overgrown girl
with mouse-colored clouds of hair now confined in
a demure pigtail, it came to his mind that this must
be the Professor’s pupil again. Had she
not been called Hebe or Psyche—­or Halcyone—­some
Greek name? And gradually his former recollection
of her came back, and of their morning in the tree.

“Why, how do you do,” he said politely,
and Halcyone bowed without speaking. She felt
much as Hans Andersen’s Ugly Duckling used to
feel, and when John Derringham had said a few ordinary
things about her having grown out of all likeness,
he turned to the Professor again, and almost forgot
her presence.

His talk was most wonderful to listen to, she thought,
his language was so polished, and there was a courtesy
added to the former vehemence. They spoke of
nothing but politics, which she did not understand,
and Cheiron chaffed him a good deal in his kindly
cynical way. He was still fighting his chimeras,
it seemed, and fighting them successfully. As
he spoke, Halcyone, behind the teapot, thrilled with
a kind of worship. To be strong and young and
manful, and to combat modern dragons, appeared to
her to be a god-like task.

In the midst of a heated argument she rose to slip
away. Her comings and goings were so natural
to the Professor that he was unaware that she was
leaving the room until John Derringham broke off in
the middle of a sentence, to rise and open the door
for her.

“Good-by,” she said. “Aunt
Roberta is not very well to-day, so I must not be
late. Good night, Cheiron”—­and
she went out and closed the door.

“But it is quite dark!” exclaimed John
Derringham. “Is there a servant waiting?
She can’t go all alone!”

The Professor leaned back in his chair.

“Don’t disturb yourself,” he said.
“Halcyone is accustomed to the twilight.
It is a strange night-creature—­leave it
alone.”